This is the legitimate concern

Posted on: September 23, 2017 at 15:36:45 CT

Will Counzo stick with the offensive plan if it develops slowly and affects the defense? Going all analytics here Counzo's offense to defense margin over his career is 68.8/64.7. By contrast not counting the last 3 years (66.1/71.3), Missouri since Norm has been 75.3/69.6. Counzo's first year offenses have been his worst. His talent level has usually stayed the same or got worst in that first year. As the talent has improved and the understanding of his defense, so has the offense. Also by his own admission his focus has more so been on improving the defense causing him to stay vanilla on offense.

That's why what he is doing now is a departure and will be interesting to watch. The caveat here is the talent level is improved in this his first year and he’s turning the responsibility over to others. If the offense improves, which though minuscule was trending up anyway, with the influx of offensive talent then that will lend itself to vast first year improvement. I think there has to be a double digit margin between offensive and defensive scoring to really be in that 6-1 range Vegas is predicting. That is what both Mike Anderson and Frank Haith did in their best years. Quin never accomplished this but his best year was indeed the year he went to the regional finals, which was a 7 point differential.

Edited by longtimereader at 15:44:24 on 09/23/17